Kaiju Hearts
by Gojirahkiin
Summary: In the aftermath of Kingdom Hearts 2, Maleficent concludes that the overwhelming majority of Heartless are useless, even in vast numbers. When she seeks out powerful beings to corrupt into her service, her travels take her to a world brimming with kaiju. Can Sora and company stop her in time, or will the Mistress of All Evil gain an army of monsters?
1. Discovery

Author's Note: I know that I normally save these for the end, but I'm proud of this chapter. Nearly every other story I've submitted so far has tiny prologue chapters, but this one is actually a respectable length. Furthermore, I have had this idea for what feels like ages, and this chapter is a kind of commemoration of the day that I finally figured out how to get from here to the ending I have in mind.

Without further ado, I present to you the first chapter of my _Kingdom Hearts_ /Godzilla Franchise/Mothra Trilogy crossover, _Kaiju Hearts_.

* * *

Maleficent left Pete at the castle they had taken from Organization XIII and entered the Darkness. The buffoon needed rest before she sent him to perform any tasks, and leaving him alone with the Heartless was a test for them – if they did not remain obedient to her even outside of her presence, she would have to purge them from the castle.

Regardless of her minions' fates, Maleficent was disgusted at the ease with which her Heartless were swept away in the face of her foes. She had no concern for them – they were numberless and easily replaceable. They were legion in the Realm of Darkness, but for all their numbers they continued to fail her, whether it was against Keyblade wielders or opposing Nobodies.

There were fools who might deem it dangerous to enter a Corridor of Darkness without a fixed destination in mind, but they were weak. Maleficent did not belong to the Darkness; the Darkness belonged to _her_. That was why she could do what no other dared – to enter the Darkness not with a destination, but a purpose.

She desired to rule every world that was, and while Kingdom Hearts was temporarily beyond her grasp, such a problem was immaterial without powerful minions with which to enforce her will. That was her purpose as she walked the Corridor: to find a world of powerful beings that she could turn into Heartless.

It irked her to no end that she was partially emulating the "royals" Mickey and Minnie. How she loathed the fact that Sora, Donald, and Goofy were such thorns in her side for so long that she had learned their names; such a minor annoyance, and yet such a grievous insult. Still, every ruler required knights, and soon she would acquire some of her own, and then she would experience the joy she knew only came from crushing an enemy that had dared to defy her.

It would be fair to say that Maleficent was used to being the most powerful being regardless of where she was and who was near her. Jafar and Ursula were powerful magic users in their own right, and Hades claimed to be a god, but it had been she who was in charge of their alliance. Even here, in the heart of the Realm of Darkness, the innumerable Heartless parted before her rather than risk her ire… but it was this same fact that gave her pause when she felt power emanating from a nearby door to another world. Smiling to herself, the dark fairy forced her way through with her magic.

She found herself standing atop a pile of rubble, surrounded by clouds of smoke and curtains of fire. Anyone else might have been concerned with the destruction all around them. Maleficent merely found herself intrigued at what could have reduced what seemed to have been a city of stone to gravel and ash. And it seemed that her curiosity would soon be sated, as she could feel the tremors from some truly titanic struggle where she stood. With a dismissive wave of her staff the flames doused themselves and the smoke dispersed.

And for once Maleficent allowed herself to gasp.

Before her stood a creature that could dwarf one of Hades' Titans, and crush Cerberus beneath its heel. It was reptilian in the sense of being covered in scales, as grey as charcoal, but any comparison to what reptiles she was familiar with ended there. It stood on two legs like a man, its sole compromise to its ancestry the long powerful tail that occasionally slammed against the ground. And from the base of said tail to the top of its head ran three rows of sharply pointed, irregular spikes.

The beast placed one foot atop some vast mechanical construct that appeared to have been forged in its likeness and unleashed a powerful roar at something to its left. Maleficent watched as a stream of orbs of golden light rocketed towards the creature, which made no effort to move. The projectiles struck across the monster's torso, creating sparks and clouds of smoke that rapidly obscured it. The dark fairy felt more than heard the thunderous growl from within the cloud. A moment later, a vast streak of multicolored light came from the same direction, followed by a pair of enormous rockets. All struck the entity lurking in the cloud which let loose a howl of rage.

Idly wondering what was attacking a creature that she was now plotting to enslave, Maleficent teleported herself to the top of one of the ruined structures that still stood for a better look at what was happening. Though only elevated to the height of the creature's waist, she now had a clear view of its attacker.

It appeared to be yet another metal construct, this one more humanoid. Silver and bipedal, it lacked hands, instead possessing some kind of storage for the rockets she had seen earlier, and they closed into cone-like protuberances. However, the humanoid features extended to its face, which appeared to have a pair of glowing yellow eyes and an oddly placed drill for a nose.

She was distracted from her inspection of the mechanical titan by a sound like thunder coming from within the smoke-cloud. Even through the smoke, Maleficent could see that each of the creature's spikes was flashing repeatedly, until each had reached a steady blue glow. The beast leaned out of the cloud and she saw its jaws part and an azure ray of nearly blinding light emerge. It struck the creature's metallic foe in the chest, causing it to stagger back from the force, and making the metal glow and warp from the heat. A second eruption was directed at the titan's arm, which endured for a moment but was ultimately sheared off. The remaining arm opened, preparing to fire another rocket, but a third blast of light struck the opening and its volatile cargo detonated, taking the arm with it.

Without its arms the construct appeared not to have any method of attack, but Maleficent saw and heard the drill whirring to life. The mechanical titan then launched forward, apparently rolling as its legs did not move, and it plunged its drill into the creature's hide at the base of its neck. For the first time she heard it cry out in genuine pain, and saw it bleed. The monster took a few steps back during the assault, causing the building she stood on to tremble violently, but she watched enraptured as the creature brought both of its arms up to the offending weapon and then dug its claws into the drill.

There was an unholy screech as claws and metal ground against one another, but the drill slowed and then stopped. Once it had, the monster clutched it with both hands and crushed it, pulling it out of the wound as it did so. Then its spikes began to flash and glow once again and it fired once more, this time directly down onto the head of the machine. The beam appeared to pierce it in its entirety, making it crumble and shatter as it fell.

The beast snarled and looked around, as though daring any other challengers to present themselves. Then, satisfied that none would, it looked to the sky and roared in victory before beginning to walk away from the field of battle.

Maleficent chuckled as she began to plan. She had seen the rage in the monster's eyes when it had scanned the area. Such a powerful and enraged creature would make a fine Heartless champion. But first… now that the battle was over Maleficent was more aware and could sense other sources of light and darkness in this world – and the creature was not the strongest source of either! While she could simply overrun this world with Heartless until all fell to the darkness, such tactics might draw unwanted attention. No, for the moment it was time to return to her castle and plan. That creature would serve her soon…

Far away, Mothra Leo stirred in his den. Though he had wanted to stop Godzilla's rampage, something had held him back. During the sixty-five million year hibernation that had prepared him to face the King of Terror, he had become attuned to the ebb and flow of the strands of fate, and his newfound awareness was warning him. Something dark and terrible was coming to the world, and for a moment he had almost felt its presence… but without more concrete warnings, he could not act. With a soft trill he flapped his beautiful wings and ascended into the sky. He could not stop what was coming, not yet, so perhaps it was time to reacquaint himself with why he fought. He flew out to sea to clear his mind with the planet's natural beauty.

Beneath both land and sea, in a pitch black cavern, red eyes opened in the dark. It had been many long years since Battra's "death" at Godzilla's jaws but the planet had created his body from nothing and had done so again, and that meant that soon he would be needed once more. For now though he would rest. Resurrection and reincarnation were exhausting tasks, and Battra had just done both. That was enough for one day.

Far off the eastern coast of Japan, but far closer than its citizens would like, Godzilla had just killed an unlucky Kamoebas and was currently swimming with its carcass back to his island home. As he swam, the King of the Monsters was in deep thought; when he'd fought MOGUERA he'd also felt a dark presence, but nothing had challenged him afterwards. Perhaps whatever it was was smart enough not to fight him, but he doubted it. The presence had slipped away as he started leaving, so it was likely biding its time. For now Godzilla would do the same; he needed some time to take food to Junior anyway. Ever since their battle with Destoroyah, Junior's appetites for both radiation and meat had increased and feeding his growing son was a full time job.

On a secluded and otherwise abandoned island Godzilla Junior slumbered on the beach, basking in the sunlight. It had been years since the last of his nightmares about Destoroyah and his own near death experience, but he stirred all the same, tail lashing out and shattering a tree into splinters, suddenly awakening. Junior realized that it hadn't been just a dream. As he remembered the soothing psychic presences of Miki and Meru all those years ago, he knew that he had felt something similar in his sleep, only malicious instead. As he lay back down he hoped that it was just a bad dream, but somehow he knew better…


	2. New Friends

The air above the sea visibly shimmered and shook as if it were a liquid or gelatin, and for the briefest of moments anyone standing in just the right spot might have seen an alien sky as a ship emerged from the rippling portal. As soon as the ship fully exited, the portal vanished as if it were a mirage.

It was a strange ship. It's design and colors were bright and whimsical, as though it were a child's drawing come to life rather than a vessel capable of moving between the worlds. True, it had the appropriate pointed tip of a rocket ship, but the transparent dome in the center for pilots and passengers to look out of was comically large. Despite that, it still had windows along the side, as if the dome were not a good enough view. It even appeared to have a large vacuum cleaner attached to it for some reason; then again, how else would the Gummi Ship collect things as it traveled from place to place?

Sora, Donald, Goofy, and their constant companion Jiminy Cricket were currently looking out the windows at the water while Chip and Dale flew the ship.

"Garwsh, the view sure is pretty."

"Yeah, but there's nothing here."

Sora scratched the back of his head. Donald had a point, but then, "Maybe everything is underwater, like Atlantica?"

Before anyone could say anything more the ship was suddenly surrounded by a vast cloud of beautiful rainbow-colored moths, each trailing what looked to the group almost like pixie dust. Many of the moths flew right up to the windows as if just as curious about the ship's inhabitants as the inhabitants were about them.

All too soon though, the cloud seemed to lose interest… but it accelerated in front of the ship and kept veering to the right and then back into view. If Sora didn't know any better, he might think that the moths wanted to be followed, but that would be silly, right? Childish even.

Then again, Sora was a child, even if he was edging closer and closer to becoming a teenager.

"Chip, Dale, can we follow them? Maybe they're trying to lead us somewhere."

"Aye aye Sir!" the duo cheerfully called, turning the ship to stay with the sparkling cloud.

Sora's guess turned out at least partially correct. Deliberately or not the moths lead them to a tropical island before suddenly all flying into a cave leading to what looked like a ruined temple. Rather than being dark, the cave was well lit and open due to a large, seemingly crafted circular hole in the ceiling that let in bright sunlight. Within that circle the moths stopped and began circling all around the cavern, but mostly keeping to the center illuminated by the noon sun.

The ship landed just beyond the circle. The group had no idea how long they would be staying in this world, so if nothing else they would at least have a wonderful view.

The trio (well, quartet if you included Jiminy) disembarked, just in time to see the next part of the show. The moths continued to flutter about, but their circling and winding paths gradually started converging, until it looked like they were forming a shape.

"Are they… is that a giant moth?"

Sora was only guessing, but he turned out to be correct. The moths seemed to start merging together, and after a few moments, the very last moth had combined with the group and they took the form of one colossal moth with bright green eyes and the same rainbow wings. It opened its mandibles and let out a loud chirp. Despite the volume of the sound and the size of the creature, the group got the distinct feeling that it was saying hello.

"Hello everyone."

Sora and company looked up and around.

"Who said that?" He looked to the moth, "Are you talking in our heads?"

"No, Mothra can't do that. Maybe it would be easier if we came up to eye level. Fairy!"

There was a softer chirp, but otherwise identical to the one from the giant, and Sora soon found himself facing a pair of tiny women astride a slightly larger moth.

"Hello," the one in blue waved. "My name is Lora, and this is my sister Moll." She gestured to the one in orange and yellow,

Their tiny steed chirped again, and Lora patted its side. "And this is Fairy."

Having encountered both fairies and Titans on previous occasions, Sora took all of this in stride, and introduced himself.

"My name is Sora, and these are my friends Donald, Goofy, and" he held out a hand for the fourth teammate to jump on, "Jiminy Cricket."

The anthropomorphic cricket removed his hat and bowed.

Lora leaned towards he sister and whispered, "This is going to be a fun conversation isn't it?"

Moll could not help but smile.

* * *

Meanwhile, far away in the ruins of a coastal city, Pete stumbled out of the Corridor of Darkness and fell flat on his face into a pile of rubble, making Diablo squawk in annoyance as he fluttered away from the resulting dust cloud, landing on a nearby lamp post.

The former steamboat captain had rarely – maybe never – seen Maleficent in such high spirits as when she returned from her trip into the void between worlds. The dark fairy had given him very specific instructions in her own condescending way.

"Listen closely to me Pete. I have left a trail leading deep into the Darkness for you to follow, and you will find a world filled mighty beasts and a city in ruins beyond the door. You are to find out everything you can about them by any means necessary – kidnap someone who knows about them if you must – but do not draw attention to yourself. You proved your strength in our battle with the Heartless, but now your chance to prove that you are competent. Now go!"

He'd gone to leave immediately, not wanting to be around when she returned to her normal sour self, but then she called out, "And take Diablo with you. He will watch your progress and even if you fail, he will not."

So he'd been forced to take the mistress' pet raven with him to this new world.

Upon getting up and brushing the dust off his face, Pete looked around and said, "I can see why Maleficent wants whatever did this on our side. It looks like it might almost be as strong as me!"

The raven cawed at him and fixed him in its gaze.

"Yeah, yeah, I know what she said: be discrete and get information. Scram! She as much as said she expects you to do better than me, so why don't you just go do it?"

Diablo tilted his head for a moment, but then looked past the anthropomorphic cat.

"You've already failed at being discrete just by coming here. I was several blocks away and I still heard you yelling at the bird."

Pete looked around, but couldn't see anything and didn't make note of where Diablo was looking.

"Who said that? Show yourself!"

What looked to the raven like a purple bolt of lightning struck Pete's backside, making him leap into the air and yelp before coming back down.

"I suppose I'll save us all some time and address myself to the smarter of the two of you. Garu-Garu!"

Pete finally caught a glimpse of something small flying up to look Diablo in the face. It looked like a tiny fairy with Maleficent's tastes in fashion sitting atop an extremely small dragon with mechanical parts.

"Your mistress may call me Belvera, and I believe that we can help each other…"

Diablo briefly looked away from her to caw at Pete and then fly back through the portal from whence they came. Belvera followed without so much as a glance behind. Pete huffed and then waddled through the portal and shut it behind him. At least the mission was over quickly.

And so two very similar conversations took place, one on Birth Island, and the other in the Realm of Darkness.

* * *

Moll and Lora were standing on the ledge of a natural pool – well, a deep puddle from Sora's perspective – while Fairy relaxed nearby. He and his friends were all sitting on the soft, moss-covered ground beside it.

"So Mothra is a friendly monster?" Goofy asked.

Moll replied, "We prefer the term kaiju, but yes, you saw yourself how he lead you all here. He told us that you looked lost."

"I thought you said he couldn't speak," Donald sounded confused.

This time Lora answered, "No, he can't speak to you. We are bonded to him, so we can understand him."

* * *

"And this Godzilla is the King of the Monsters?" Pete asked. He hoped to be able to get as much information as possible, otherwise he would be shown up by a bird once they got back to the World That Never Was.

"That's only a title the humans gave to him because they see him as the mightiest," Belvera growled. "All that matters to them is power."

"So the people here are ripe for the turning into Heartless, but what about the monsters?"

"That depends. What are the Heartless?" She inquired.

* * *

"You came here to fight these Heartless? What are they?" Moll asked.

Sora paused then replied, "It's kind of hard to explain. Master Yen Sid could explain it better if he were here, but Heartless come from the darkness in people's hearts – the bad parts: hatred, anger, bitterness, jealousy. Too many emotions like those and a person will eventually just change into one."

"But how do you fight them?" Lora sounded alarmed. "You're a child…" she trailed off.

Sora wasn't offended. He simply replied, "With this!" and summoned his Keyblade.

* * *

"Really?" Belvera's voice and body language both betrayed her skepticism and disdain, "They are banished when hit hard enough with giant keys?"

"Hey, I'll have you know that Keyblades hurt when they hit ya!" Pete snapped, "And it's not like there's a whole lot else that can destroy Heartless. Without a Keyblade, it would take a whole lot of magic."

* * *

"So Mothra would probably be able to protect you," Sora finished.

Moll and Lora exchanged worried glances.

* * *

"Can animals be turned into Heartless?"

"Anything," Pete said, seeming to relish being able to lord knowledge over someone else, "that can feel emotion can be turned into a Heartless. I once turned the leader of a pride of lions into a powerful Heartless."

"Then your mistress would be most interested in Godzilla, Battra, and the Ghidorahs – at least, the ones that aren't already dead."

* * *

"This Maleficent person can raise the dead?" Moll sounded horrified.

"We think so," Sora confirmed, "We can't think of any other way Oogie-Boogie could have come back, especially since he got stepped on the first time around."

Fairy let out a worried trill. It summed up the Elias' emotions perfectly.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Okay, I know that this chapter wasn't the greatest, but I really didn't want to have to write two separate sets of dialogue explaining essentially the same concepts, hence the back and forth between Sora and the Elias on the good side, and Pete and Belvera on the evil side. The next chapter will be better because all the awkward introductions will be over and the plot will begin to take proper shape.


End file.
